


Noise in the Cockpit

by pentapus



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, In which I devise an angsty sci-fi premise for Shiro to need cuddling as a medical treatment, M/M, Mild Angst, everyone please take care of shiro, mental links with technology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-01
Updated: 2017-04-01
Packaged: 2018-10-13 16:26:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10517475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pentapus/pseuds/pentapus
Summary: Piloting the black lion was unlike piloting any ship Shiro had ever flown. And it wasn't just the bizarre weight balance. It was that he didn't know on any given day howloudthe Lion was going to be.Today was one of the loud days.





	

Piloting the black lion was unlike piloting any ship Shiro had ever flown. And it wasn't just the bizarre weight balance. It was that he didn't know on any given day how _loud_ the Lion was going to be. 

Some days, Shiro had only the occasional tickling intuition from out of nowhere, a hunch that now would be a good time to check the altimeter. He still had to get the information he needed from the heads up display like every other respectable pilot out there. Other days, the Lion's sensory data unfolded vibrantly inside his brain, and he could feel the radiation of a Galra blast warm against his own back.

Today was one of the loud days.

Every Galra fighter swarming past came with its own blip of information beamed directly into Shiro's head -- velocity, heading, expected damage capability. Even more disorienting was Zarkon’s deafening call for the Lion, constant and unending, pounding against Shiro's temple and just behind his eye. That immense, dark flagship loomed across the field of view, an ominous backdrop to the fire fight. 

"Should we -- Voltron? Again?" Hunk said.

"I don't know," Pidge said. "Shiro -- ?"

His team was around him, ready, but Shiro couldn't bring the lions together and _hold_ them for long enough to make Voltron. There was too much noise. The instant he managed to pull them in, mental doors started closing. His vision would dim, his fingers would lose their grip, he'd start gasping until Voltron disarticulated like a shoddy children's toy. Worse was his team knew Shiro was the weak link. He could hear them on the comms, concerned for him, wanting to close ranks around him. It was unacceptable. They wouldn't survive this battle unless Shiro could be an _asset_ , not a liability. His Lion was bigger; he had the better combat experience. He couldn't be benched, not when they needed everything he could give until Allura and Coran were ready to jump. 

With each push and dodge, Shiro got a little less information from his readouts and felt a little more inside his head. It came with a dizzy buzzing in his ears, like the light-headedness when he pushed himself on the last lap of a PT test. He wondered if the dizziness marked the point at which human brains simply weren't compatible with the Lions, but he couldn't _stop_. There was always another Galra fighter in front of him, always another call from his teammates for aid or direction.

It was easy to retreat farther into his connection with the Lion. The more he stepped away from the readouts and into his head, the more information he could handle; the quieter the ringing bell of Zarkon’s voice became.

The silence filled him with such welcome relief that he wanted to weep. He dove into his awareness of the Lion, glad for the distance, able to grasp the whole geometry of the battlefield. He directed his team as though watching from afar.

“Shiro?” Keith sounded uncertain but urgent all the same.

“Ohhh, guys,” Hunk said, “I think my lion just moved.”

“Yeah, buddy, they’re supposed to _move_ ,” Lance said.

“Without me,” Hunk said. “No, no, wait, I guess I told her she could -- Shiro, did you, uh, text my lion? To, like, check our left flank?”

Shiro -- wasn't sure he done that. He'd wanted to warn the two of them about the squadron coming in from the planet's shadow, but he couldn't remember now how he'd done it, only that Hunk _had_ noticed and had survived. 

He frowned. The details didn't matter right now. They could break it down later in the AAR he would make then sit through. It was time to focus on the immediate goal. _We have to maintain the line until our next jump._

When he tried to speak, he -- forgot how. Like a common word just out of your grasp, only in this case _all_ of them were, and all he got out was, “ _Focus_.” 

His lips felt numb as he formed the words. All around him, a whispering sound was rising like a swarm of bees in flight: the next wave of fighters taking shape across the starfield. 

“Be ready,” he said, but he couldn’t hear himself say it. He felt all around him the lions perk up, their heads-up displays blossoming with the angry icons of detected enemy ships. Over the icons, bright arcing lines traced the suggested routes to maintain the castle's protection.

 _Good_ , those were the routes he’d wanted. Easier not to have to say them. 

In his head, Zarkon had gone mute, and Shiro felt as safe and protected as it was possible to feel in the middle of a battle. The black lion responded to every shift of his body like they’d been welded together. A hole opened underneath him in the mindscape, a darkness dotted with stars as though the cockpit had disappeared. He’d be weightless, moving through space with his own body and swatting Galra from the sky with his fists.

He fell into it.

Time went away for a while. 

He thought that battle had ended, that with it had come sleep and rest. But he didn't remember leaving the Lion, congratulating his team. He didn't remember being updated on the castle's status, though he would absolutely have asked Allura about it as soon as he'd left. 

He did have a memory of the castle after the battle -- of what he _thought_ was the castle, but it was from a perspective he'd never seen. The castle felt too small, almost claustrophobic, like he'd crawled into one of the nooks and crannies Pidge was always exploring. Shiro had always found the castle quiet and cold, but now he could feel its heat and noise, constantly radiating visible light, radio waves, infrared, and a whole spectrum of vibrations.

A little while later, he felt someone in the Lion with him. The internal microphones registered amplitude, then alarm klaxons as something tried to physically separate him from the Lion. A door slammed shut.

Voices were speaking, arguing, some from external comms, some inside the cockpit.

 _...iro! Open the door, Shiro._ The princess was touching his wrist -- no, not his wrist, not exactly. She was so small. He tried to settle further into rest mode, joints locking, head high so as not to hurt her.

_...physical contact might….more luck._

Someone squeezed his wrist again, only this was different, and it felt like coming out of a doze, discovering he'd talked in his sleep. He wasn't the Lion. That was -- a ridiculous mistake. Embarrassment washed over him. His instinct was to apologize, but he couldn't get his mouth to open.

His vision was still of the dark starscape around him, but now there was a small, smudged double vision of Pidge’s face, the color washed out of her skin and hair. “...need to open the door,” she said. Her voice was indistinct, slipping in and out of hearing. “I need Hunk... my laptop.”

Shiro tried to speak, but he had forgotten how to command his body. Was it ever something a person did consciously? It just happened, except it wasn’t _just happening_ now. His heart rate started to kick up. Yes, a heart, that was right; he had a heart, not a self-contained subspace reactor. 

He couldn't see anything inside the cockpit, just this faded mirage of the gleam of Katie’s glasses -- and her wet cheeks. Oh god, that wasn’t -- he had to --

Something started beeping in his mental view of the HUD. Pilot stress indicators.

“Shit! Now the shield’s up, too.” Even barely there, Pidge’s frustration and fear came through. “What? Keith, no, I'm not going to --”

Keith’s face blossomed into view like a drab sketch slowly filling in with pigment, brighter than Pidge had been, his cheeks flushed a rosy red and his dark eyes flecked with purple like the starscape Shiro had fallen into. Keith had his whole hand pressed to Shiro's cheek, skin to skin, shoved up next to the edges of the helmet. Shiro drew in a startled, gasping breath.

“Shiro!” Keith said, searching his face. The noise, the smell of sweat and slightly stale breath hit Shiro all at once. He closed his eyes against the onslaught.

Eyes. That was good. A good first step. He could build from that small ground.

“Damn it.” Keith hissed, angry with panic, “he was _looking_ at me.” 

Pidge again, faint and distant: “You’re _squishing_ him.”

Shiro’s body was flowing back into his awareness piece by piece. First the tops of his thighs, then the left side of his chest, a weight there making it hard to breathe. The cockpit started to come back into focus, color finally washing down Pidge’s face, her hair, the green accents of her armor.

Shiro realized belatedly that Keith was crawling on top of him, wrapping one arm around his neck, shoving the helmet off and plastering his side against Shiro’s front. 

“Shiro,” Keith said intently, Pidge hovering next to him with a skeptical expression. 

“I need my laptop,” she said. “There’s an electrical connect -- ”

“Keith,” Shiro whispered, hoarse.

Pidge whipped back around. Keith leaned in closer, staring furiously into Shiro's eyes. “Shiro!” they said, relief breaking in their voices. Pidge reached up to rub her eyes ungracefully with her entire forearm. 

“Is that -- ” she hiccuped, “ -- seriously working?”

Shiro finally got his mouth to move, gasping softly. “I’m getting… too much information from the Lion. I don't,” he had to stop you take a breath, “know -- ”

"Ok, yeah, we can fix that." Pidge rested her cheek tentatively against the top of his head. “Sorry for the -- touching, Allura said physical contact was the best way to, uh.” 

The upper corner of the cockpit past her head painted itself into his vision. He winced, imagining the sweaty birdsnest that his hair had to be. He wanted to move, to get up so the two of them didn't have to do this awkward dance. 

Not that Keith looked embarrassed, his eyebrows drawn down in determination. He threw a leg over Shiro's lap, adding another rich tone of scarlet to his armor and bringing out an undertone in his dark hair. He looked like a student in the simulator, determined to shave another hundred milliseconds off his score.

“Shiro, can you open the shield and the hatch?” Pidge said. “I can shut down the connection if I have a laptop and Hunk.”

Shiro wanted to say miserably, _I can’t do anything,_ but that wasn’t acceptable. Panic hit him as he reached for his connection to the Lion and the cockpit started fading out again, darkness closing in. 

Patience. _Focus._ The shield came down with a soft fizzle of electricity. The hatch hit the ground with a thunk. He could see a tiny Allura and Hunk rushing forward, Lance flailing behind them, held back by Coran.

His vision snapped abruptly back to the cockpit, his self once again human sized and carbon based. He didn't know how it had happened, and he blinked slowly, looking for a cause. Pidge lay across his lap like she’d fallen or been yanked, blinking up at him with big startled eyes -- no, at Keith, who had both hands on Shiro’s face and was leaning very close. His mouth was the reddest thing about him, like he'd bitten it nearly bloody.

A banging came from outside the cockpit.

“Internal door,” Pidge said. “Opens manually --”

Keith leapt off of Shiro, rubbing at his mouth. Before Shiro’s vision had a chance to fade, Keith had picked Pidge up and re-arranged her so that she was tucked into Shiro’s side from chin to hip. “Keith!” Pidge squawked.

She fell silent as Shiro managed to wrap an arm around her gratefully. “Sorry,” he breathed, “I’m going to get up soon. I don’t -- I didn’t mean to cause this trouble.”

“It’s okay,” Katie said quietly, tucking her head under his chin, though he could see she’d turned cherry red and that made his chest clench uncomfortably. She fit comfortably under his arm, a small human paperweight that would keep his flighty brain from getting lost in the ether. “Besides, if _this_ is really the treatment, then Hunk will _definitely_ be able to help.”

**Author's Note:**

> this is a fill for [a kink meme prompt](https://voltron-kink.dreamwidth.org/1161.html?thread=4489#cmt4489) that I definitely did not leave on the meme myself last summer and then fill almost a year later. Thanks to Firefright for the beta.


End file.
